Arson on Christmas Eve
by TheSilverHunt3r
Summary: "Alex," Tom sang. "I have an idea." "Oh...God no," Alex protested. "I recognize that tone. It's the 'reckless scheme that could land us in jail' one."


Gävle, Sweden

December 23rd

The bed was soft, a welcome change from a sleeping bag on cold earth and uncomfortable rocks. Alex had collapsed onto it the moment after he walked in the hotel room and dropped his bag.

He had his eyes closed, trying to relax. The clattering of fingers on a keyboard and the lamp that Tom had turned on several minutes proved to be too much of an annoyance. Alex groaned and opened his eyes, resigned to staring at the ceiling until Tom felt like going to sleep.

The chair at the desk squeaked. "Think fast!" A mischievous voice warned.

Motivated by curiosity and slight fear, Alex jerked his head towards the desk. A slow blur of orange was headed towards him. Oh. Well, that was a lot better then last time, when Tom chucked a baseball at his head. Alex rolled his eyes as he caught the ball. "Really?" He dryly asked. "I don't get how you're still this hyper after rock climbing, dodging bullets, and hacking into that network."

Tom twisted his torso slightly to see his friend and stuck out his tongue.

"It was my first international mission. Of course I'm still excited."

Alex sighed. He should just give up on changing Tom's opinion, the drudgery of surveillance ops would do that job soon enough. "What are you even doing?"

"I want to see the sights," Tom explained with a shrug. He smiled as he turned back to his laptop. "At least see something! We're in Sweden, there has to be something we can do before going back home."

He paused. Struck by the obvious two keywords, he simply typed in 'Christmas Sweden'. Tom scrolled down the page. He clicked his tongue and shook his head at some of the search results. His eyes lit up at the title of an article, something about a goat being burned down.

"Alex," Tom sang. "I have an idea."

"Oh...God no," Alex protested. "I recognize that tone. It's the 'reckless scheme that could land us in jail' one."

"Yes," Tom admitted with a dismissive hand gesture. "But, it'd be worth it," he promised.

Rather reluctantly, Alex sat up. He glanced at the door, just in case Wolf was there listening. The coast was clear of the interfering, usually responsible adult. Alex peered at his friend suspiciously. "What is it?"

XXX

Wolf plunked the three boxes of local bakery food on the desk. He shot a suspicious glare at the two teenagers who innocently stared back. He pulled off his coat and draped it over the desk chair. Warily, he asked, "What is going on?"

"Well, it's not about what's going on currently," Alex carefully began.

"It's about what is going to go on." Tom grinned, slightly vicious. "You see, I had this idea..."

Wolf stood there as the plan was explained to him. It took all of his patience not to hit the two of them on the head (albeit lightly). He scowled.

"That's how we're going to burn down a Swedish Christmas goat," Tom chirped. "We can borrow three costumes from a small church nearby here, we called ahead."

"The excuse?" Wolf calmly asked. He restrained himself from gritting his teeth.

Tom nodded sagely. "We said we were filming a short nativity scene video and we only needed them for a few hours."

"It's only been two hours since I left," Wolf deadpanned.

The two teenagers shrugged.

Wolf glared at them for a moment. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You're doing this without or without me, aren't you," he muttered.

"Yup," the two teenagers happily replied in unison.

Wolf sighed. His scowl deepened as his determination to stop this wavered. H*ll, he already feel massive future headache coming on from agreeing to this.

XXX

The hay had lit up. A marvelous sight it was, a hay horse burning.

"We are f*cking legends," Tom proudly declared. He pounded Alex on the back.

Alex snorted and almost staggered slightly. "It does look kind of pretty."

The last member of the party, Wolf looked at the burning pile of hay amid the snow and resolved that no one would find out about this.

XXX

London, England

December 24th, Christmas Eve

Tulip offered all of them peppermints. Tom was the only own who accepted.

The debrief went fine. Alex only made four sarcastic remarks loud enough for Tulip to easily hear, which was pretty close to a personal best. This was achieved by Wolf elbowing or lightly kicking his shoe when he saw the upwards twitch of Alex's lips, a clear indicator of a humorous thought.

Tulip didn't dismiss them after the debrief however. She coolly looked at each one of them for a few seconds each. Then, she calmly questioned, "Would you three happen to know anything about the Swedish Christmas goat being burned?"

"What goat?" Tom innocently replied, his face perfectly straight.

"The Swedish Christmas goat that gets burned down by arsonists every year. This time, it was done by three men dressed as the Three Kings of Orient. Instead of frankincense, myrrh, and gold, they brought molotov cocktails." Tulip

Tom seemed to choke slightly. He coughed. Actually, he was holding back his laughter.

Tulip narrowed her eyes.

Alex opened up his mouth. There was a slight upcurl at the edges of his mouth.

"Not you, Alex," Tulip ordered with almost blatant hidden irritation. She looked to the last member of the team. "Wolf?" The name was slightly drawn out, cautious, and spoke to her quickly diminishing patience.

"Why would you suspect us?" Tom insisted, interrupting. He knew it was hard for Wolf to keep the twinge of regret off his face when he had done something mischievous.

"You were in Sweden, in the same area last night," Tulip stated.

"That's an assumption, and we resent that. It's pure, unfortunate coincidence," Alex protested.

"Alex," Tulip warned.

Wolf coughed, drawing the attention of the others in the room. He drew a breath in, making sure that his face was stern, yet polite looking. "Admittedly, Madam, it does seem unfair to suspect us simply because we were in the same city. As you yourself said, it apparently happens every year?"

Tulip fixed all of them with a stern gaze. She was 99% sure they did it, but she had no proof they had. Perhaps the three were trained in hiding evidence of their doings in foreign countries a little bit too well. With a frown, she decided, "Fine, you are all dismissed."

XXX

"We're back!" Wolf announced.

Alex stepped inside. He stared at the wall for a moment, thinking. "I'm going to sleep after dinner," he decided.

"Yo! Hey kiddos!" Eagle crushed Tom and Alex in a bear hug.

The two teenagers groaned and tried to pull away. Alex slipped under and out of Eagle's arms.Tom loudly protested, still stuck.

Wolf shook his head at the three, suppressing a smile. He went into the living room.

Snake and Fox were on the couch, lazily watching tv. They both had a blanket. A bowl of popcorn was on the couch seat between them.

A cocoon of different blankets had been strewn on the floor. There was a knitted one, a cotton one, and a fuzzy one, all different shades of green.

Fox craned his head to see Wolf. "Hey, did you bring dinner?"

Wolf rolled his eyes. "What am I to you guys, your delivery guy?"

Alex propped his elbow on Wolf's shoulder. "Pretty much," he jokingly confirmed.

Fox chuckled. He tugged upwards on his blanket, trying to cover his chest.

Tom strolled into the living room, behind Eagle. "Of course we got the food."

"What type?" Snake questioned. He rolled a stiff shoulder blade as he stood up. He was hungry. Only the small measure of politeness he still kept around his teammates kept him from just taking box of takekout nd eating it on the couch.

Eagle flippantly revealed, "It's Mediterranean, bunch of lamb, flat bread, plus tzatziki sauce." He paused, thinking about something. "Ehh," he drawled, "Not very Christmasy, but good food is good food."

Tom cocked his head. He was confused, but curious. "How could you tell what it was?"

Fox waved a lazy hand."He could smell it," he explained.

Eagle beamed. "Yeah, I have-"

"Anyways, let's eat," Wolf interrupted. Fox, Alex, and Snake shot him greatful looks.

Dinner was the usual. Four grown men and two teenagers fighting for food. Tzatziki suace was liberally applied to everything as it was one of the only few sauces all of them liked.l

"Ooo, games," Eagle suggested. "It's Christmas Eve, and we're all here. We should play some games."

"I want to sleep," Alex complained with a groan.

"You're not allowed to. It's Christmas Eve, Cub," Wolf objected.

Alexscowled. "I don't really see the big deal."

"Well, it's a big deal because there's family, presents, good food and...eggnog!" Eagle exclaimed. He used his hands to emphasize all of the really important words, like food, and eggnog.

Fox rolled his eyes. He muttered, "Not really the best explanation, completely glossing over Jesus's birth which is why we even celebrate it, but..."

Alex cocked his head. His eyes were narrowed slightly in confusion. "Eggnog?"

"You've never had eggnog?" Eagle loudly gasped.He bounded over to the fridge, grabbed the eggnog and cup, and came back. "Drink this and weep over the your life's former horrible lack of eggnog." He slid a red cartoon and a cup in front of Alex.

Alex complied, with a raised eyebrow.

The men, and one teen, waited for his reaction.

Alex took another sip, then gave the verdict. "It's...actually kinda good," he admitted.

Eagle cheered.

"Alright, poker?" Fox suggested.

"After we clean," Snake insisted. He gave a pointed look to everyone. The medic was a secret stickler for cleanliness. He was really the only reason the house hadn't devolved into a mess.

"Poker after we clean," Fox amended.

Leftovers were stored in the fridgerator; along with extra soy sauce and duck sauce that was put in a cup of random accumulated sauce packets. Bits of rice and vegetables were scooped off the table and dumped into the trash. Small puddles of sauce and rims of water from where cups had been were wiped up.

"That's good," Snake decided. There were several mutters and looks of thankfulness that the torture was over.

"By show of hands," Wolf announced. He raised his hand.

The vote was taken easily, all hands up, poker won.

While Snake dealt-being the only one everyone trusted not to cheat-Eagle retrieved a tin of chocolate chip cookies. They munched on them as they went.

There were a lot of good poker faces among them. Wolf, Fox, and Alex all had blank neutral looks. Due to bad hands and not being able to read half of the table, Snake and Tom briefly wanted to quit after the third hand. Eagle was as boisterous as ever, a smile when he had a great hand, a frown when he had a bad hand.

Then came the seventh hand. The river was: a king of spades, jack of spades, and a three of hearts.

"Aww," Eagle groaned as he looked at his cards.

The first round of betting passed. Everyone put in one chip.

The fourth card was added to the river. It was now an ace of spades.

Fox whistled at the new card. He upped the bid by five.

Eagle upped the bid by another ten chips, a frown on his face.

Wolf folded, the slight twinge of a grimace pulled his lips down. Everyone else matched the bid of fifteen.

The fifth card was the queen of diamonds. The river was now an ace of spades, queen of diamonds, king of spades, jack of spades, and three of hearts.

Alex upped the bid by twenty chips. He grabbed another cookie from the tin.

Tom folded. He shook his head and pulled out his phone.

Snake folded immediately after Tom. He sighed, a slightly amused yet exasperated smile on his face.

Fox and Eagle matched Alex's bid.

"Alright, show," Snake announced.

After brief glances at their fellow players, they put their hands on the table, face up.

Fox had the queen of hearts and the queen of clubs.

Alex had a trash hand, only the two and a five of clubs. He had bluffed the entire game.

Eagle grinned at them all as he raked the pile of coins over to his place at the table.

"No," Alex stated in disbelief.

"What?" Wolf asked, in a similar state of denial.

Eagle had tricked everyone, he started bluffing at the fourth card. His hand was the queen of spades and the ten of spades. He had the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of spades for his five cards, a royal flush.

"I'm done," Alex flatly remarked. "I can't believe I fell for your acting."

"Don't be a sore loser, Cub." Fox elbowed Alex with a slight smile.

Tom snorted.

Wolf sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What time is it?"

Tom glanced at his phone. "12:04."

"Merry Christmas guys," Eagle happily declared.

Fox smirked. "Oh, right, now I remember what I heard in the 'Bank' earlier. What's this I heard about a goat and you guys committing arson?"

Alex and Tom exchanged a look.

Tom smirked. "Well, you see, I was searching up tourist stuff for us to do in the morning before we got on our flight..."

A/N

I hope everyone enjoyed the shenanigans of these guys.

I really like eggnog, drinking it is one of my favorite things about the holidays.

Psa: Please do not commit arson.

Merry belated Christmas UnderHisWings!

-Silver


End file.
